


Scars Cover Wounds

by panther



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-15 23:50:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panther/pseuds/panther
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pansy and Lavender had found comfort from the terrors of wartime Hogwarts but now the war is over and they are trying to move on. Lavender is fighting depression one day at a time and Pansy is going her best to help her, while never quite being accepted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars Cover Wounds

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this bouncing about my HD for a while so I'm pleased to finally get it done :)The title is from a Rose Kennedy quote “It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”

The scars don’t matter to Pansy, because it was never about Lavender’s beauty in the first place. It was about the strain of being in a prison that masqueraded as a school and knowing that they could leave at any time but never quite managing it. It was the unforgiving rough kisses, the knees shoved between thighs hard enough to make them gasp and the touch of another person that was just enough to remind them that everything was still _real_. Now, things are not nearly as bad but sometimes Pansy thinks Lavender still needs that sort of reminder. The war has scarred them all but Pansy’s skin remains unblemished while Lavender carries a deep red scar down one side of her face and her throat and neck are marred by a criss-crossed angry mass where a werewolf had clawed at her once porcelain like skin. Pansy knows that part of Lavender resents her for keeping her looks. She is not one to look at, not really, but Lavender had always been _the_ one to look at and it had been taken away from her. 

Lavender also resents her for trying to hand over Potter and flee in the first place. She doesn’t bring up Pansy’s return to the Castle often, or the fact that it was her who stemmed the bleeding and got the blond to a healer. No one remembers that and in fact, Pansy is convinced many of them don’t even know. Lavender doesn’t make any attempt to remind them and it will never sound good if Pansy did. It will always be her trying to prove a point or show that she is worthy of Lavender. 

Pansy has changed and not many people want to take the time to notice that. Bitterly, she thinks she shouldn’t have to prove anything to anyone, not now. She had spent months being glared at by Lavender’s parents while she sat in her lovers room and spoke to her about the re-building that was taking place as Lavender sat on her bed and stared blankly at the walls. It was months before Lavender started to speak to anyone and nearly a year before Pansy convinced her that it was ok to go outside. Maybe it started out of guilt at first, a twisted sense of responsibility because of the fucks in the dark and the detentions Lavender had received when she never made it back to her tower on time, but by the end Pansy was just as happy as anyone to see Lavender sitting out in the garden and not flinching when strangers looked at her in the street. 

They just don’t get it, not even now years later, and Pansy is getting sick of making them see. She doesn’t know why she loves Lavender, not really. She can’t give them a list of what makes them work or why she stays around when Lavender cracks under the weight of her mental illness and withdraws into herself again. Relationships don’t work that way, and Pansy wasn’t raised to believe she would even _have_ a proper relationship so she doesn’t even know the expected rules of how things are meant to be. An arranged marriage was the only thing she knew growing up. She was a commodity that her father was going to sell off to someone else, and then the war came and things like that don’t happen anymore because it doesn’t look right, doesn’t fit the image of the new world that Minister Kingsley is building. 

She just _does_ love Lavender. Somewhere between stolen gropes in empty classrooms and actual whispered conversations in class something actually mattered. Something sunk in. Slowly, Lavender gets better but it is a long and difficult process with plates being flung at walls and Pansy being slapped more than once. Lavender doesn’t jump straight into adult life as she had never really started in the first place, doesn’t know what to expect, and Pansy is not convinced she can handle the strain of a full time job just yet. Pansy herself works as a secretary in the ministry, handing out brutal tongue lashings to anyone trying to get through to see the Aurors without an appointment. Ironically, a lot of her time is spent chasing the press away from Harry Potter so she really is not looking forward to his promotion. It will be hard enough worrying about her own job without worrying about how Lavender is handling hers. Her salary is not spectacular but given that Lavender rarely goes out and doesn’t shop the way she used to, it covers them and they are happy, most of the time. 

“Maybe you could design things? Fashion things you know?”

It isn’t really a suggestion that Pansy expects Lavender to take seriously. Every now and then she suggests _something_ , hoping that Lavender might connect and have something to focus on. She has spent the day cleaning, making dinner, basking in the basic fact that she feels capable of doing those things today. She nods though, tapping her lips with her fork thoughtfully before asking about where she can get supplies. 

Pansy comes home a week later to find Lavender surrounded by thin metal wires, coloured fabric and feathers. Some have found their way into her hair though she doesn’t seemed to have noticed, and before Pansy can get her shoes off Lavender is thrusting a finished hair clip in her face with a triumphant smile. Pansy smiles and wonders how they will get the word out, who could possible sell them on, while Lavender chats about her plans for clips and fascinators for weddings. So many are getting married these days, happy to have survived the war, and Pansy thinks this might be the happiest she has seen Lavender in years. It is like a whole new side that she has never had the chance to know is creeping out of the dark hole Lavender has been consumed by. Pansy herself has opened up so much since that first angry kiss on the sixth floor. She has changed a lot more than she is comfortable admitting too. Lavender asks Parvati round to the flat to be a model for some of her new accessories because she knows it would bore Pansy to tears and the other woman gives Pansy surprised glances the whole time while the ex-Slytherin observes over the top of her magazine. 

“She seems so much brighter. This might be the big step that she needs.”

Of course, she still has bad days. One day Pansy comes home to find Lavender staring at the wall in their bedroom again with bottles of foundation scattered everywhere. Her scars are still faintly visible and Pansy sighs before bringing her tea and trying to coax her out of it. She is still in her pyjamas and it doesn't look like she has eaten anything since breakfast so Pansy wonders if she is going to relapse into her previous state and tosses and turns through the night. Lavender wakes up her up early enough in the morning that the sun is still rising, kissing down Pansy’s neck and clawing at her nightclothes until she can strip them off her. She tells Pansy about how she was feeling as they kiss, and then says she needs to go back to Hogwarts before she can move on. Pansy doesn't know what to say so kisses her harder, rolls over and pins her to the bed, desperate to make her smile. 

Going back is strange for them both. The Headmistress doesn't object because they are hardly the first to return to the grounds looking for closure. Lavender sees spells being thrown across the deserted courtyard and Pansy just sees blood everywhere, Lavender’s and the rest. The memories consume them both and Pansy feels like she might suffocate with the intensity of it all. A burning sense of pride for Lavender settles in the pit of her stomach at the thought that she deals with this all day, every day, and probably so much worse. It is a chapter in her life that Lavender needs to close before beginning another and Pansy wishes it would be so easy as wandering through the grounds and laying ghosts to rest before moving on. It is only the beginning though. Lavender suggests that she try and sell her things through owl orders and Pansy agrees, thinking that it won’t lead to problems on the bad days because Lavender can catch up on the good. Shut stores lead to debts they can’t pay and questions they don’t want to answer. Taking Pansy’s hand, Lavender smiles and hums to herself, glancing at one of the towers that Pansy suspects homes the Gryffindors, before nodding and leading Pansy towards the gates. 

“You and me. We’re an odd match-up,” she mutters as they head down into the village aimlessly, not quite ready to leave entirely. 

“I guess,” Pansy agrees, shrugging her shoulders. “Does it matter?”

“No. Not to me.”

“Well, that is alright then.”

“Alright. Everything is going to be alright,” Lavender says in a sing-song, smiling and making Pansy smile too because it reaches her eyes and that doesn’t happen often. There is no way of really knowing that, even if Lavender does think she can predict the future at times, but it is the first time in a long time that Lavender has really looked forward. She has a plan, an idea, a vision and that is something.


End file.
